THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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suffered, endured and lost alike. It was the women of the South who made it possi- f ble for the Confederacy to last so long. General Grant, while he was in Mississippi, said to “ a rebel woman: ” “The work of you women surpasses anything in history. It is astonishing. Why, with my overwhelming numbers of trained soldiers I could whip this handful of raw recruits in a little time if it were not for you Southern women.’’

Finally, however, time and circumstances brought to an end this unequal struggle. The sun of the Confederacy had set never to rise again—set in a halo of glory which will forever far outshine the gaudy triumphs of victory. And the men and women who had suffered every vicissitude of fortune during these four years, though they had been reared as delicately as European princes, turned from the duties and dangers of war times to private life and hard labor. Though the bowl had been broken at the fountain, there was no time for vain regrets. In many instances the mother, or the eldest daughter, or perhaps a maiden sister, because of the ruthless hand of war, was all that was left on distant plantations, or in splendid but totally dismantled city homes, to battle with the world and keep the wolf, from the door. When these women, so tenderly reared and delicately nourished, went forth as bread-winners from the very best families, daughter’s of the South’s proudest aristocracy, a new order of things for the Southern women was begun. Though her father, her brother, her hus­band and sweetheart were gone, her plantations devastated, left without stock, provis­ions or hands, her city home in smoldering ruins, the world has yet to hear one word of complaint or murmuring from her lips.

Ah! the influence of those women was and is being felt by the younger Southern women of today. During the storm that followed the first cloud-burst in the throes of silent agony, a new creature was born who came into the world possessed of a price­less heritage. The mothers of the Old South have laid a foundation upon which the Southern woman of today may build a personality for herself that will be a force in any undertaking. With no desire for public renown, no hungering for shout and stare and clapping of hands, and empty plaudits, those mothers and daughters mold society into lofty ideals of manhood and womanhood, yet still clinging with loving touch to the traditions of the past.

Underlying all her social conditions, touching life in all its relations, she has ^ always held a place peculiarly her own; but with a new need of self-defense with a more keenly awakened desire and a thousandfold better facilities for obtaining an education, with more of physical culture, despite the,languidness of our clime, and a general coming out into the glorious sunshine of a broader world, she has come to the front as never before. Scorning each carping tongue that says—

“ My hand a needle better fits.”

She has grasped the pen, the painter’s brush, the physician’s science, the surgeon’s instruments, the accountant’s desk, and a number of other things to be used as tools with which she has builded an independence for herself.

In the beautiful verse of Margaret J. Preston, whose powers were never fully evoked until the ardent patriotism kindled in her bosom, by the afflictions of her country, found vent in truly inspired lines, we find a splendid specimen of a Southern woman’s poetical genius. Surely harp never echoed to sweeter music than hers, and following in her wake many Southern women have cheered and gladdened the hearts of thousands of readers and built national reputations for themselves. Notably among them are Mrs. Nicholson, editor of the New Orleans “ Picayune,” the fore­most women in letters in the South, the gifted “Catherine Cole,” Mrs. Mary E. Bryan, of Atlanta, Ga., Miss Virginia Wild, the foremost of Southern painters, and indeed one of the most gifted.in the world, Miss Julia Tutwiler, a world-renowned teacher, together with a host of others, who have by their own fair hands rebuilt and adorned the South. And while they have builded so nobly for themselves they have not for­gotten others. Soon after the war all over the wrecked and desolated South the women again took matters into their own hands, and began to agitate the question of raising

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